


Thrown in the Deep End of the Parenting Pool

by crystalkei



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 18:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3988417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalkei/pseuds/crystalkei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Octavia leaves Bellamy with her brand new baby while she goes out to find Lincoln. Clarke helps and their relationship finally progresses. SUCH DOMESTICITY. SUCH MUSHY STUFF. etc etc</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thrown in the Deep End of the Parenting Pool

"Don’t you  _dare_  look,” Octavia growled bringing Bellamy’s eyes back up to hers. Curiosity had gotten the better of him for a half second but he snapped out of it as she gripped his hand harder. He was at her side, his other arm was holding her leg up hooked under her knee and Clarke was at the end of the table. Her face concentrated.

“One more push, Octavia, just give me one more,” Clarke said and Bellamy felt Octavia’s muscles tense. This wasn’t like when Octavia was born, even if years had dulled the memories, he knew this was different, better. “Now, Octavia, push,” Clarke said before she started counting.   
  
Lincoln should be here, but he was gone. Two weeks ago they’d gone out on a routine meeting. Clarke and Bellamy could have done it without him, but this clan had a particular dialect that neither of them had managed to get quite right and they were sticklers for protocol and tradition so he’d volunteered. It was going to be three hours. No big deal. Octavia wanted to come but she’d been having contractions and Abby refused to let her go. 

There was a storm and he’d fallen off the side of the trail, then a mudslide and he was gone. They’d been searching for the past two weeks but he was gone.

Octavia was a mess. She was angry with everyone. Bellamy knew eventually the anger would be overcome by grief but so far she was still livid. Even in labor, when her water broke she cursed and tried to punch him every time he offered assistance in getting her to medical. Octavia screamed like a banshee when Abby tried to touch her, claiming if she’d not put her on bed rest, Octavia would have been able to save Lincoln. Clarke heard the gossip around camp that Octavia was in labor and came running just in time to see Octavia to throw a tray at Abby.

“I got it, mom,” Clarke offered and now she was down there, covered in more blood than Bellamy saw when he brought down a deer. He choked back his concern and remembered that his mother did this and survived without a doctor, Octavia was fine and in good hands. Women were badass. 

“Good, good, good,” Clarke said and her tone and the sudden loosening of Octavia’s grip had Bellamy looking at Clarke for confirmation. “It’s a boy.” She lifted the baby up and placed the bloody mess of goo and tiny person on Octavia’s chest. Bellamy was in awe, Clarke was smiling, and Octavia started to sob. But it wasn’t happy tears. She looked away and Clarke yelled for Jackson.

Bellamy tried to get her attention, but she shook her head quickly, refusing to speak, just closing her eyes, more tears slipping down her face. Jackson came in with a makeshift baby warmer they’d rigged since coming down to the ground. He spoke to Octavia carefully and meekly.

“I’m going to give him a bath and get him cleaned up.” She didn’t respond. By now Clarke had cut the cord and Bellamy looked back to see her delivering the mound of flesh and blood that was the afterbirth.

“Grounders like to plant the placenta,” Clarke explained looking at Bellamy. “Octavia, I’m going to save it for you, okay? We can keep it a few hours until you decide what you want to do.”  Again Octavia gave no response. “Do you want something for the pain?” She finally nodded and Bellamy took two steps to lean into Clarke.

“Give her the good stuff, maybe she’ll wake up and snap out of this?” Clarke nodded. 

“Octavia, do you want to sleep?” Again Octavia nodded wordlessly, still turned away.

 

 

An hour later Clarke came to check on her, Bellamy was holding the small bundle that looked a lot like Lincoln but with Octavia’s nose. She looked at Bellamy with something that he’d never seen before, adoration? Aching?

“Congrats on delivering your first baby solo, doc,” he whispered and she gave him a small smile.   
  
“I just wish it was under better circumstances.” Clarke turned to glance at a sleeping Octavia across the room.

“You want to hold him, he’s really warm and it’s medically frigid in here as always.”

“There’s a reason for it to be cold in here,” she argued, but opened her arms to cradle the baby. 

“Yeah, your mom is an ice queen,” he teased and she rolled her eyes, but he saw her lips twitch, holding back a smile. “He kind looks like a potato but he’s cute, I think.” 

“He is.”

Clarke looked at him quickly then down at the baby and Bellamy caught it, it looked like longing. They’d been on the ground years and she’d spent all her time since the mountain putting up a wall around herself. Bellamy knew she thought she was death and destruction but he also knew that he was the only one close enough to be allowed in, though never romantically. Every few months they’d get close, it might be her getting drunk or him letting his hand linger too long on her arm, but then she’d snap or he’d remember that she couldn’t want him and they’d take 10 steps back and start all over again.

It was almost a comfortable pattern by now. But he filed away the way her face scanned him while holding Octavia’s baby.

\--

 

It was Sunday, he knew because he heard the fucking bells that someone had rigged for the stupid church. Bellamy wasn’t a fan of religion and the bells only intensified his distaste. But then he heard the baby. Of course, a new reason to hate worshipping of Gods be it bonsai trees or Jesus Christ.

“Octavia,” he called out. “Do you need help?”

He was sleeping on the floor of her main room. His muscles ached and he missed his bed. He scrubbed at his neck and rolled his shoulders but the baby still cried and Octavia didn’t respond. He found the baby in his cradle and lifted him gingerly. Octavia was nowhere to be found.

 

 

“She’s gone,” Bellamy yelled banging down Clarke’s door. She opened, her hair wild, rubbing her eyes.

“What?”

He had the baby in one arm and his hand waved the note in the other.

“She said she’s going to look for Lincoln.” Clarke took the note and read over it with critical eyes.

“She had a baby four days ago, what is she thinking?” she asked, something between confusion and irritation in her voice. “I mean, shit, she’s still bleeding, why would she just leave?”

“I’m going out to find her, she can’t have more than a three hour start. She fed the baby just before dawn.”  
  
“You can’t. Stay with the baby, I’ll go, did you get Miller?”

“Already got him up, he and three others, Yost, Nakamura, and Travis, ” he explained. “Clarke, I need to go.”  
  
“I’m sure when you find her she’ll murder you, this note is very specific. She doesn’t want you coming after her and she actually showed some affection for the baby suggesting you’re the only one she trusts. That’s huge for her. I mean, she hasn’t really warmed to him at all, has she?”

Bellamy’s jaw clenched. She was right. Octavia was still rejecting the infant most of the time and he hadn’t been to work since she’d come home from medical, he was shouldering most of the baby care. Octavia hadn’t even given the baby a name yet.

“Fine, go, but be careful, and I think she’ll start at the basin, where the mudslide was worst,” he explained concerned. “But go east and then cut back, otherwise you’ll catch that mountain lion rock. She doesn’t ever go that way.”

Clarke took his instructions seriously and he continued to needle her with little bits of advice as she pulled her boots on and put together a pack. He walked her to the gate and she surprised him by reaching for his face. 

“We’ll do this, I’ll bring her home,” Clarke said firmly, before she gave him a kiss on the cheek and signaled for Miller and the others to follow her out. Bellamy felt ridiculous holding a baby and watching them leave, but he was so frantic he stood there until he saw them disappear into the trees. Fuck all the people staring.

 

\--

The next day Bellamy woke to Clarke sitting down on the foot of Octavia’s bed. The baby was just starting to stir for the eighth or maybe ninth time, he’d lost track and was running out of the formula that Abby managed to work up for him. Octavia was a much better than this baby, or maybe he was just so young he didn’t remember.

Clarke had dark circles under her eyes, they surely matched his, her shoulders slumped as she glanced at him defeated.

“You didn’t find her?” She shook her head.

“Worse, we did find her, she won’t be talked out of this.”

He huffed in frustration and sat up, gesturing with his chin that they move out of the room to try and get a little bit longer without a screaming baby.

“This is why I needed to go. I could have brought her home,” he said with a snort. Clarke gave him a look.

“It wouldn’t have mattered. You would have only made her more determined. You of all people should know that.” She reached for his arm and he resisted the urge to pull back. Bellamy felt helpless but Clarke was right, he let her come closer and envelope him in a hug. He wrapped his arms around her and sighed into her hair as she spoke. “She went to Indra and now they’re going to do some kind of religious ceremony to figure out where they should look. Indra is sure he’s not dead and Octavia is of course holding on to that.”

“Fucking religion,” he grumbled and Clarke stifled a laugh.

“I knew you’d hate that.”

 

\--

After the first week of sudden parenthood, Bellamy moved back to his cabin. Clarke held the baby while he gathered the cradle and the cloth diapers and the makeshift bottles.

“Feels like he’s gaining weight, that’s good, babies usually lose a few ounces and then rebound but I guess that synthetic milk is working.” Clarke was trying to cheer him up but Bellamy was still worried and grumpy. But he couldn’t help but feel a little surge of pride. This baby was thriving on his watch.

But as often happened to Bellamy, he got a little too cocky, even in just that moment of accepting Clarke’s praise. Hours later the baby was inconsolable. 

“Maybe it’s the change of scenery, maybe he thinks it’s too cold in here? Or the air feels funny?” Clarke suggested over the screams of the baby Bellamy was doing a little bit of a dance with to try and calm him.

“I don’t think that’s it. I’ve done everything, you’ve done everything. Maybe he’s just pissed?” Bellamy was beyond frustrated at this point and had moved into concern that something might be seriously wrong.

“Skin to skin contact,” Clarke said as though a light bulb lit above her head. “I read once that babies like that. Take off your shirt!” He was so desperate he didn’t even have jokes about her demand. He handed her the baby and reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head quickly. Clarke unwrapped the baby from the blanket, leaving him in just the cloth diaper and put him on Bellamy’s chest. He covered the baby’s back and bottom with his hands and Clarke tucked the blanket around the baby to keep him warm. It was almost instantaneous.

“Maybe we confused him and now he’s just winding up to start again,” Bellamy said looking intently at the little tuft of hair sticking out of the blanket.

“I think it worked,” Clarke said, eyes bright and a wide smile on her face. Bellamy looked up to her and blew out a breath.

 

They ended up on his bed, the baby still on Bellamy’s chest, Clarke next to him, looking up at the ceiling. They were speaking in whispers. Mostly Clarke was trying to distract him with talk of this meeting or that gossip. 

“It’s because Miller and Monty can’t talk about chess, ever, they don’t even play against each other anymore,” Bellamy added to her story about the two of them fighting. “Monty once let Miller win and now Miller is sure every time they play that Monty is letting him win.”

“So I should just tell them to knock it off and take their chess board? I’m not their mother,” she said too loudly while throwing up her hands.

The baby startled and started to cry. They both groaned. Clarke reached out and he gently passed the child to her. She was in a tank top, her bra long gone when she decided to stay the night. She nestled the baby against her breasts, his little face against the bare skin above her tank top. He soothed quickly and Bellamy rolled on his side, propping his head up on his hand, and scrunched his face.

“That’s just not fair.”

“What?” 

“He gets to enjoy your boobs, not fair,” he said with a straight face and Clarke actually giggled. He waited for the inevitable moment that came every few months when they got too close, but she just shook her head at him fondly and he cleared his throat and reached out to push some hair behind her ear. She flushed pink when his hand lingered on her cheek. They stayed like that for a while, just watching each other.

 

When the baby cried next, Bellamy woke to find the tiny screaming person in between them and Clarke’s hand pushing at his shoulder lightly, her eyes still closed.

“He needs to be fed, I did it last time, so it’s all you, pal.” He didn’t believe in any god but he thanked the universe for her just being there right then.

 

\--

 

After the second week of Octavia’s absence, Bellamy had to go back to work but the baby was too young for the camp daycare so Harper came over and showed him a long piece of fabric, she deftly tied it around him creating a pocket for the newborn to fit against his chest safely, well covered from people’s germs and cozy so he slept most of the day. They adjusted the patrol schedule and he did paperwork, scheduling, mediation, anything that could be done while toting a baby around. Raven joked that he looked like a kangaroo. He shrugged it off because she was right.

That all worked fine until Kane insisted he go on a mission out of the gates. They’d started farming about 10 kilometers away from the camp, fertile soil and flatter land, better irrigation, but there’d been some problems with the guards posted there. Bellamy had to go.

Clarke agreed he needed to go, so that night as he folded cloth diapers and she rocked the baby she offered to take him for the day.   
  
“I just have a quick shift at medical,” Clarke said, her voice sing song and over exaggerated for the baby’s benefit. Since he’d moved back to his house, Clarke had been there every night as well, he never asked, she just kept showing up and he just kept thanking her.

“Put a mask on him or something, I don’t want him to catch something,” Bellamy said but he knew she’d be careful.

“Junior and I are going to have a great time, we’ll sleep in tomorrow, maybe sunbathe a bit, have brunch, it’s going to be fun,” she said. Her hair was up in a messy bun on her head to keep it out of reach of little fists and Bellamy tried to ignore how he liked the look of it.

“Junior?” he asked, shaking himself out of his stupor about her hair and how beautiful she looked.

“All that nonsense and you just latched onto me calling him Junior?” Her eyes were bright and playful.

“We don’t know if he’s a junior.” Bellamy folded the last of the diapers and stood up, to look at the baby. “Are you a Junior?”  
  
He was so close to Clarke now but she didn’t flinch or move, he felt her eyes on him and he looked at her trying not to laugh.   
  
“It’s got to be better than calling him ‘the baby’ all the time. That’s getting tired,” Clarke explained. “Surely Octavia can’t get mad that we gave him a wholly generic nickname when she left him without a name at all.” 

The mention of Octavia had Bellamy’s stomach dropping. “Yeah. Okay,” he tried. “Speaking of tired, I think I’m gonna go to bed.”

“I’ll feed him here in a minute and then I’ll come to bed.”

“You don’t have to stay, I can take him and you can come back tomorrow morning to get him.” He wanted her to stay but he didn’t want her to feel obligated. This was his responsibility and she was already covering for him tomorrow.

“I want to,” she said sincerely. Clarke’s free hand snaked to his and she nodded. “I want to help you and I don’t mind.”

He pressed his lips together and returned the nod. That night the baby slept longer than usual and Bellamy ended up on his stomach but Clarke was on her back and his arm was over her middle. The sun was coming up and he needed to get ready to meet Kane at the gate. But he took a few minutes to look over at Clarke, she was snoring softly and Bellamy ran his fingers along her side to coax her to roll over. He hoped this was it. This had to be the time they wouldn’t take 10 steps back.

“You gotta go, Kane will be unbearable if you’re late,” she said lazily as she rolled toward him, blinking the sleep from her eyes. “When did Junior eat last?

“It’s been at least four hours so I’ll be quiet getting ready, don’t get sunburned or eat too much at that brunch you think you’re having,” he teased. Clarke mumbled something and then grabbed him by his neck, kissing him on the lips quickly and then pushing him out of bed. Bellamy was so shocked he sat confused a second before shrugging and going with it. He was giddy the rest of the day.

Even Kane’s boring conversation couldn’t get Bellamy down. They finished early out at the guard post, discussing the best ways to handle animals that came to the fields, working out some interpersonal problems between the staff assigned at the post. Listening to Jasper go on and on about plants Bellamy didn’t care about.

Bellamy probably walked too fast on the way back but Kane wasn’t exactly an old man, he could keep up.

He dumped his bag in his cottage and headed for medical. When he got in, he bypassed a few people sitting in a waiting area, Jackson waved him to the back, but he stopped outside the office Clarke was usually in, the curtain was closed and he heard Clarke and Abby talking.

“People are starting to talk,” Abby said sounding irritated as usual. Bellamy rolled his eyes.

“Which part bothers you, Mom? The gossip or that I’m helping with the baby?” Clarke asked her voice flat. He almost wished he’d come earlier to hear more of this thrilling exchange.

“You’re sleeping over there, people notice,” Abby interjected. “The baby isn’t yours, I don’t know why you’re playing house.” Bellamy made a face. Clarke was finally getting comfortable and Abby was going to push her back.

“Thanks for the reminder, I forgot about the day I pulled this baby from someone else’s body.” He heard Abby huff. “I’m not even going to dignify your other comment.” 

Bellamy smirked but his winning feeling was lost a moment later when Jackson came back. He tried to act like he wasn’t just eavesdropping and thankfully Jackson didn’t notice.   
  
“That baby was so good today, I almost forgot he was here,” he cooed and clapped Bellamy on the arm. “Is he sleeping better yet? I thought we’d never survive the twins in the beginning but now I almost miss it. They were so little then. It goes by too fast. You two are doing great, I can tell.”   
  
“Just trying to survive,” Bellamy replied with a shrug.

“How crazy is it though? Your sister had a baby, your sister wasn’t even supposed to be born! My wife had twins, I mean the ground is great, right? Pretty soon you and Clarke can do whatever you want, life is just really nice here,” Jackson went on in his jovial way. He was always mildly excited and positive about everything. Bellamy didn’t relate but you couldn’t be mad at the guy. So he just nodded along and tried to keep up. 

Clarke must have heard the conversation because she was poking her head out behind the curtain. Her smile was tight, clearly the conversation with her mom hadn’t improved.

“I got back early, thought I’d come get him so you could work in peace,” Bellamy explained.

“I’ll go with you, my mom is here for her shift so I can go.”

“Okay.” Clarke ducked back into the room to get the baby and Bellamy said goodbye to Jackson before he followed Clarke out of the clinic.

“How much of that did you hear?” she asked as they started on the path back to the cottages that lined the perimeter of the camp.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he lied but Clarke gave him a sidelong look. 

“You’ve got that smug grin on your face that you only have when you win an argument with my mom or Kane at the council meetings.”

He tried to keep a straight face but it didn’t last long. “Fine, I heard your mom suggest we were playing house.”

She raised a brow, “Are we?”

He didn’t expect the question and it threw him. He stumbled over a response before giving up.

“Who cares? I’ve got bigger fish to fry, like I haven’t heard from Indra’s people and we’re supposed to meet with them next week for the monthly trade and I don’t know if she and Octavia are out having séances looking for Octavia’s probably dead husband.”

“And we still have to worry about Junior,” she added and Bellamy nodded in agreement. “Hopefully we’ll hear something soon.”

“Yeah.” Bellamy was starting to really worry about Octavia now and even though Clarke made it easier, she made everything easier, he didn’t actually want to raise this baby. Not because he didn’t love the little screaming machine, but just because it felt wrong. Junior needed Octavia.

 

\--

 

They both went to the agreed upon trading spot to meet Indra’s group. Clarke had to go because she was the one who made the trade agreement in the first place and she was expected there. Bellamy set up a meeting with one of the grounder’s farmers. Jasper had seeds to trade to get more fruit seeds, apparently their peaches weren’t growing like he hoped, but Jasper never left the farming guard post so Bellamy handled all the transactions. Harper offered to watch the baby, so had a few others, (including Wick but Raven made a face so Bellamy dismissed the offer immediately) but ultimately, Abby signed off on the idea of taking him. Bellamy felt more comfortable about taking the little guy rather than leaving him with someone that the baby hadn’t spent any time with. Plus, Bellamy fleetingly hoped that Octavia would meet them ready to come home.

By the time they got there, Bellamy was sweating from carrying the baby strapped to him in the cloth. Clarke spoke a few words to Indra’s second and without even breaking eye contact reached for the baby as Bellamy tried to remove the fabric from himself. Miller snorted behind them before he started unloading the supplies for trading from the cart. 

“What?” Bellamy asked but Miller just shook his head.

“No wonder people are talking,” Bellamy heard him mutter.

“Like the kids from the drop ship haven’t been calling us ‘mom and dad’ for years,” he snapped back and Miller just laughed.

Indra and Octavia were indeed, still out looking for Lincoln. Her second, a teenager that couldn’t have been more than 15, Temple, said they’d found some evidence that he was definitely alive. Bellamy looked to Clarke skeptically and she returned the glance. It wasn’t that he didn’t wish Lincoln was alive, he just knew life wasn’t that kind to them. 

In bed that night, next to him, looking up at the ceiling, Clarke voiced his worst fear. “What if she doesn’t come back?” He took a deep breath trying to think of what to say but he had nothing.   
  
“I don’t know.”

“I mean, how long do you wait? To give him a name? To push out the wall to make room for him, I mean what if he starts talking, some kids do that as early as seven months, saying mama and dada.” She turned to look at him but he continued to stare at a spot on the ceiling. She reached for his hand and straightened her head back on the pillow, looking back at the ceiling.

“She can’t be gone that long,” he said lacing his fingers with hers and bringing her hand to his bare chest. “Right?”

Clarke said nothing.

 

\--

Another month past and Octavia didn’t come home.

But Junior was getting personality, reaching for more and more things, making noises that weren’t just screams, and he even rolled over. Bellamy had never been so proud of an accomplishment that wasn’t his own. Even if the floor might have been a little sloped. But Clarke said that two months was early for rolling so Bellamy was very sure that Junior was basically a genius.

All of Clarke’s stuff was now in his cottage, not on purpose, she just brought things as she needed them so after two months her cottage was sparse and his was full. They were trading off taking Junior to work but it was getting trickier since he was awake more often and didn’t want to be strapped to anyone’s chest. He wanted to see what was going on. In another month he could go to the camp’s childcare facility. Bellamy approached the idea with apprehension because he just didn’t want to think about another month of Octavia not being home. But Clarke insisted that even if Octavia came back, the baby would need to be in care so everyone could go to work.

Clarke went out every other month to a grounder village a day’s walk away and helped with the sick. This village had goats and they’d traded her medical visits for a few goats. The village had suffered a lot of adult loss from the mountain years before and it was full of children and older people, the two groups got sick often that they were desperate for her visits. So for three days Bellamy was left on his own with the baby and it was fucking terrible. 

Nothing really happened, everything just felt off with Clarke gone. He’d experienced this before, when she was gone after the mountain, he handled things fine but everything seemed a little more difficult and he was quicker to frustration. Bellamy had no problem admitting that when his partner was around, he did better.

The baby was barely sleeping in his cradle when Clarke came bounding through the door. It was dark and he didn’t expect her back until the morning but here she was, hugging him. She dropped her bag with a loud thud and they both cringed.   
  
“Sorry, he’s probably sleeping, huh?” she whispered looking up at him, her face flushed from outside.

“Just got him down, you’re back early, did something happen?” he asked rubbing his hands up and down her arms. These little touches were commonplace now. They were painfully domestic and he didn’t mind one bit. She shook her head and licked her lips before standing on her tiptoes and kissing him. It started as the kind of chaste kiss they exchanged before one of them was off for a while. But she parted her lips letting her tongue dip into his mouth and he groaned.

She pulled her sweater off without breaking contact, then reached for the hem of his shirt. He took her cue and pulled it over his head, she did the same to her shirt while they were apart. Then she came at him again. He stumbled back and landed on the makeshift seating area in the corner. It was full of pillows Clarke had brought from her cottage and furs he’d collected. She landed on top of him with an  _oof_  and she didn’t stop touching him. She ground into his crotch and her hands were on his chest before she started kissing across his collarbones. Bellamy leaned back and closed his eyes, running his hands along her back and unhooking her bra. When he opened his eyes again, Clarke was over him unbuttoning her pants.   
  
“What’s going on?” he asked reaching for her face, he held her cheek and gave her a half smile.

“I don’t want to play house, I want to actually do this,” she said honestly, her eyes flashed with determination before she turned in his hand so that she could kiss his thumb. 

Bellamy’s chest felt like it might burst and his breathing sped up further. He grabbed for her, pulling her close and kissing her hard. She moaned into his mouth and continued to shimmy out of her pants, then he felt her working his off. Before he knew what was happening she was sinking down on him, she gasped in pleasure and even though he let out his own hiss at the feel of her, he shushed her, a low chuckle vibrated through him but it turned to a groan as she started to move against him, seeking friction.  He kissed her and reached down to rub her clit, his senses were going haywire and he couldn’t stop the words from escaping.

“Shit, you’re so wet.”   
  
“I might have been thinking about doing this for the last hour of my walk,” she admitted with a sly smile. “I walked at a pretty good clip for this. My legs are gonna be sore in the morning.”

“Yeah, they are,” he said pushing up into her and palming her breast. She arched her back and whimpered. That was a bad idea. 

They didn’t notice at first, they were too wrapped up in each other, but as Clarke started to come apart, riding him faster, he heard the baby. She stopped, her face scrunched up. “Dammit,” she whined.

“Just keep going,” he said thumbing her clit again. She moved her hips once then twice and the baby really started to wail. Clarke collapsed, her face buried in his chest. “Can’t concentrate, huh?” She shook her head and laughed.

“What was I thinking?” He shifted to move from under her to get the baby. He shucked his pants off and adjusted his boxers.   
  
“I don’t know what you were thinking but I liked it,” he said picking up the baby.

“We’re not having kids right away, we’re gonna have lots and lots of sex first,” she said, gathering their discarded clothes and putting them in the proper places. Bellamy laid the baby down and changed his diaper, as Clarke pulled her oversized sleep shirt over her head.

“Oh so this is a thing now, this is it, huh?” He asked her, hoping she wasn’t just joking but also a little terrified. They’d been building up to this for years but the idea that it was finally happening had him sweating.

She turned to him, her eyes wide. “I said that out loud?” He pressed his lips together so he didn’t laugh and he nodded. She covered her face with both hands and whispered, “Oh god.”

“Hey,” he said walking around the bed to where she stood embarrassed. Bellamy held Junior with one arm and put his other around her for a hug, kissing the top of her head. “I love you.”

She moved her hands finally and looked up at him and sighed. “I love you, too.”

Bellamy couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. “I’m gonna get this kid back to sleep so fast. Why don’t you move the cradle as far away from the bed as you can get it?”

She bit her lip and blushed even redder but she moved out of his arms quickly. True to his word, Junior was snoring in less than eight minutes, it was a personal record, and Clarke was writhing under him while he swallowed her moans mere minutes after that.

 

\--

 

At three months Junior needed to be vaccinated. It wasn’t a big deal. All the kids had them. Babies survived vaccinations. Everyone in medical had a couple hours scheduled to do vaccinations so Bellamy was confused when Clarke kept putting it off. 

Every day that she came home from work on her day with Junior Bellamy would ask, “Did he get his shots today?”

“You know, it got really busy, did you hear that Allison broke her arm? That took me half the morning and then there was the paper work and the casting. I was up to my elbows in plaster and we just didn’t have time today.”

He narrowed his eyes at her over dinner. He was holding the baby while Clarke ate. Junior was leaning against his shoulder and picking at Bellamy’s ear making all kinds of happy little noises.

“Isn’t it bad to put off the vaccinations?” he asked concerned. “He’s a week overdue.”   
  
“It’s no big deal, I’ll do it tomorrow,” she said looking down at her plate quickly.

“You’ve said that for a week, are you putting it off…on purpose?”

“What? That’s ridiculous, why would I?” she stuttered over the words and he knew he was right. He raised an eyebrow and she pursed her lips. “Fine, I’ve been putting it off. But babies cry when they get shots and what if he gets mad at me? What if he never forgives me? What if I slip and push too far into his little chubby leg and it swells up? When Mom trained Xavier in the clinic last year he did that and this poor toddler couldn’t walk for two days! He felt terrible." 

Bellamy did his best not to look at her like a love struck idiot. He covered her hand with his and ducked his head to try and look her in the eyes. She looked at him quickly before glancing away again.  

“Tomorrow, after the council meeting, we’ll go over there together and whoever is on schedule for vaccinations can do it, okay?”

“You want me to just go with whoever is scheduled? What if it’s Xavier?!” she screeched startling both Bellamy and the baby.

“What about Jackson?” he suggested. “He’s some kind of baby whisperer and never shuts up about his kids. He’s almost as experienced as your mom but has a gentle touch.”

“Are you saying my mother doesn’t have a gentle touch?”

“Did you want your mom to do it?” he asked with a knowing look.

“No,” Clarke replied quickly. “I don’t want to hear her commentary on…stuff.”

“Fine, tomorrow after the meeting and we’ll ask Jackson.”

 

 

 

Bellamy had a protecting arm around Clarke’s shoulder in the clinic the next day. He felt her tense as the needles struck skin. He wondered if she might look away, but she didn’t. Junior did cry but Jackson took care to massage his leg and even put a colorful bandage over the spot. Then he handed the baby to Clarke who cuddled and soothed him with kisses. 

“Now you can go to baby school,” she said and it was Bellamy’s turn to bristle and get nervous. 

They walked out of the clinic to shouts of commotion. Raven came towards them a huge smile on her face. “Your hell is over, guards in the tower just spotted Octavia at the tree line!”

Bellamy wanted to argue that it wasn’t exactly hell that they’d been in the past three months but there was no time. Clarke handed him the baby and took off at a sprint, he covered the baby’s head with his hand to protect his neck and started to run toward the gate.

Just as they reached the gate it started to creak open. Octavia was weighed down by Lincoln’s body, scrawny and sick looking, covered in gashes that looked half healed, but he was alive. Clarke rushed to take Lincoln, Bellamy called for one of the guards to help her while he embraced Octavia. She almost collapsed against him and then she noticed the baby.

“God, he’s like a person, when I left he looked like a puffy potato,” she half sobbed. So Bellamy carried the baby in one arm while he guided Octavia in his other and back they went to medical. 

Clarke spent a few hours with her mom checking out and patching up Lincoln. Octavia sat with Bellamy just inside the room, relaying all the steps to find him. He’d made his way severely injured out of the mudslide but was concussed badly. He wandered the forest unsure where he was until Octavia and Indra found him. Octavia finally turned her attention to the baby who was getting fussy.

She took him and he calmed immediately. Bellamy smiled but he caught a glimpse of Clarke in his periphery. She had a sad smile on her face, Bellamy could relate. It was bittersweet.

Lincoln needed stay in medical overnight and Octavia refused to leave him so Bellamy left to grab a few things for Junior so he could stay with his parents. His real parents.

 

In his cottage, Bellamy started to collect everything. All the little bits and bobbles that stuffed a space when you were parenting. He shoved them in a bag and grabbed the cradle under his arm and walked the three houses over to Octavia and Lincoln’s. It was stuffy and hot in the house so he opened the windows. He put the cradle down in the same spot here that it sat in his own cottage.  _That should help him feel more comfortable,_  he thought to himself.

Once back, Octavia embraced him tightly. “Thank you,” she said. Her eyes were wet and she looked down at the baby and beamed. “I wasn’t ready because I wasn’t whole, but you took such good care of him and you let me find Lincoln. Thank you.”   
  
Bellamy touched the baby’s face absently and leaned over to kiss Octavia’s head.   
  
“I’m glad you’re back.” He held her tightly then said, “Clarke too, you have to thank Clarke, she did a ton.”

Octavia looked to Clarke and thanked her too. Clarke just nodded.

 

 

When they made it home, Clarke looked around and sighed deeply. Her shoulders slumped before she spoke. “You moved all the stuff out?”

“Yeah, I took it over, aired out their house, I put the cradle right by the shelf, I thought it might make his transition easier.” He stood awkwardly in front of her.

“Is it weird that I’m here now? Should I not be here?” she asked meekly.

“What? No. I want you here, you belong here,” he said pulling her into a hug. “Also we gave away your old cottage today. Because of the housing shortage?”

“We did?” she lowered her brows.

“At the council meeting? The one you bounced your leg through and looked anywhere but at the speaker, you were nervous about the shots, remember?” She looked up at him sheepishly. 

“Oh yeah, I forgot that was today.”

“I’m glad she came back, I’m glad she found Lincoln,” Bellamy said honestly.

“Me too,” she said putting her ear against his chest, hugging him close. “We can have sex whenever we want now.” He laughed.

“And be as loud as we want,” Bellamy said. “Did you want to do that now?”

“Nah, later though.” She waited a beat. “Did you want to?”

“Later,” he agreed.

“This is silly, he’s gonna be just three houses down.” Clarke tried to shake her sadness.

“Right, we’ll see him all the time,” Bellamy said as if to remind himself.

 

\--

**Three Years Later**

 

Sunday morning was the only morning Clarke and Bellamy managed to share where they both weren’t working but at this exact moment he was wondering how hard it would be to work with medical, the guard, and the council schedules to make it so they could swap to Saturday because those damn bells were ringing at the stupid church again.

Clarke was turned away from him, clutching her pillow and Bellamy was on his stomach, head under the pillows, trying to block the sound out.

“Guys, wake up!” Bellamy grunted at the small voice coming from Clarke’s side of the bed.

“Eli, it is our day off,” he heard Clarke say before he popped his head up to see the kid invading their space. “We’re sleeping.”

“Okay but Mom said I should bring you this note. But I wanted to come for reasons like how come you don’t have a baby yet? Mom said she can’t have a kid perfect as me so you gotta do it so I can see a baby.”

Clarke took the note and Bellamy let out a frustrated sigh. This happened a lot and despite Clarke not being terribly bothered by it, it made Bellamy angry. Well, as angry as you could be at a three year old who thought  _LMNOP_  was a letter in the song, not five letters in the song.   
  
“Eli, we’ve been over this,” Clarke said with far more patience than Bellamy could muster at 8am on his day off. “We’re trying. Why don’t you go home and ask your mom what that means,” she suggested. Bellamy could practically hear the wicked grin on her face.

“Good call,” he said wedging himself behind her and kissing the back of her neck while Eli scampered out of the cottage. “What’s the note say?”

“Just that Octavia wants to go to the lake today. She was inviting us but I think after she talks to Junior she’ll rescind the invitation.” He laughed and reached around to pull her closer to him, but he felt the muscles in her stomach tighten and she was up and running to the trashcan. 

Clarke heaved a few times and Bellamy sat up at the horrible sound. “Fuck, you’re late!”

She whined over the trashcan as he grabbed some water and stood by her. “You got that joke in at just the right time because you’re late and you’re puking and…” Bellamy stood with his mouth open and his eyes wide. “Let me know when I can hug you because I’m pretty excited over here.”   
  
“I’ll be excited when I’m not puking,” she managed to get out before vomiting into the trashcan again.

Octavia came barreling in the house right then, “Last week it was curse words and now you’re telling him to ask me how babies are made, it’s been three years, can you please stop punishing me for leaving him with you two when he was a newborn?”

Bellamy turned from Clarke to Octavia and shrugged. “It’s still up for debate whether ‘shit’ is a bad word. I mean, he shit in his pants. What else am I supposed to say?”

“Poop, Bell, you call it poop. And it was just an accident, he’s potty training!” Octavia argued. She tilted her head to see Clarke wiping her mouth over the trashcan. “You wanna give her some water, I think she’s done.”

“Oh yeah,” he said leaning down to hand Clarke the glass and help her up. Clarke gave a half wave and she wasn’t looking green so that was a good sign.   
  
Eli showed up at the door now, peeking his head in. “Hey Junior,” Bellamy said taking two steps and lifting him up with a bounce. “We barely survived you, but it appears you’re going to get your wish.”   
  
“Which wish? I saw a shooting star last night and wished for Mom to let me keep worms in my bed, but she didn’t let me.” Bellamy snorted and even Clarke cracked a smile. Octavia on the other hand huffed and threw her head back.

“What a mean mom,” Bellamy said. “Wow, O, let the kid have some fun.” She glared at him.

“Go tell Daddy that we’re going to the lake by ourselves today, Auntie Clarke needs to sleep more,” Octavia said as Bellamy put him down and he ran off. “Guess I’ve got some time now to think of plenty of ways to ruin your kid.” Octavia gave a smug smile and headed out the door.

Bellamy hollered after her, “I’m so excited you can’t even bring me down with that kind of talk.” He took Clarke’s arm and coaxed her back to bed. “You want some crackers? Ginger? Can I go tell your mom and piss her off?”

“Shut up and just come back to bed. It’s still too early for us to be up and our days of sleeping through the night are numbered, my friend.” He got into bed next to her and she kissed his bare chest. 

“Now you’re bringing me down, there’s always so much crying.” He stroked the skin along her arm. “Did we have enough uninterrupted sex?”

“It’s been years, I think we had enough. But we’ve still got months to go so we’ll just have to pack it in, okay?” 

Bellamy nodded. “Smart. You’re so smart.” He felt her snuggle into him closer. “Are you happy?” he asked nervously realizing she hadn’t said much about how she was feeling.

“I am,” she spoke against the skin of his chest. “I am.”

Bellamy fell back to sleep comfortable, warm, and happy.  

 

 

                                    


End file.
